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Thursday, December 2, 2010

Earlier today FIFA voted and decided which nations would host the 2018 and 2022 World Cup. While maybe some thought that the tournaments would go to England (2018) and the United States of America (2022), it wasn't so, and instead it was Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022) which won the rights to host the tournament.

While it'll be a long time until we actually get to see these countries host the World Cup, I'm already excited. I'm especially excited about the Qatar bid, mainly because it has a huge amount of potential. Although people complain about the heat (temperatures rise up to 50 degrees Celsius!), it seems like Qatar has found a way to solve the problem. Using solar panels on buildings, the idea would be to collect natural energy, and then convert it to natural, clean, cool air. This method would supposedly cool and refresh the fans, players, and anyone else in the stadium down to up to 20 degrees Celsius.

Another cool thing about the Qatar bid is the pure awesomeness of the stadiums. I say this after having watched their video (which you can watch below) which unveils five of their stadiums which will be used in the World Cup. All of the stadiums look amazing, and my favorite is the Al-Rayyan Stadium, which has a 420,000 square foot media facade, which is basically a huge screen which wraps around the outside of the stadium. Imagine walking towards a World Cup match, and on the side of the stadium you see the highlights of another match which took place the day before. If that isn't awesome, then what is?

Below are two videos, one of Russia's stadiums for the 2018 World Cup, and one of Qatar's stadiums for the 2022 World Cup.